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Conflicting advice regarding client disaster recovery


jvanland

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This was posted to another thread but got no response so I'm starting over with a new post.

 

I've been a fan of Retrospect backup since Seagate abandoned small users and have employed Retrospect to restore after a crash. To startup from a DR CD, feed in a a tape and return a few hours later to a machine that is complete and correct is really very cool.

 

I recently built a replacement machine to support my digital photo and video hobby. Pondered why one would build a 3 Ghz machine only to burden it with unrelated background processes and decided to leave the old machine running the fax software and modem. I thought having the bundled client licenses also meant I could leave that cranky SCSI card and tape drive as-is and let it back up both machines.

 

I too felt short-changed when the window popped up indicating that I needed additional licenses to create disaster recovery. After going carefully through the web site, I concede that the literature (now reading the fine print) is very carefully parsed to say DR is only for the local machine but it also treats backup and recovery as if one can exist (or is useful) without the other. The big print completely glosses over this distinction. I then rationalized that even with some small additional cost for a client DR license to go with the somewhat ineffective client backup licenses would still be a good value. After all, how much could they possibly cost? I punched the "WEB" button and apparently the answer is $600. So, some questions:

 

Am I right? Is the minimum cost of the first client DR license really $599? Did I miss the client DR two-pack that would logically go with the Retrospect Pro client backup bundled two-pack?

 

Why does the client bare-metal restore procedure described in post #42707 (install OS into a non-default folder) differ from the one listed in the manual? (Page 143, step 5, and, oh, by the way, step 8, "forget the old client" would seem to be about the stupidest thing you would ever want to do in a disaster situation. Did someone say "counterintuitive?") Being the cautious sort that I am (that is, after all, the critical personality trait of a backup software purchaser, isn't it?) if I am told two different things about supposedly the same thing, I now feel I don't have any reliable information.

 

Has either "bare-metal" procedure been extensively tested with applications? That's as opposed to data files. The reason I ask is that data files can be dumped back on a hard drive and be expected to be accessible but applications can be considerably more finicky - expecting to see the right registry entries and drivers, et al in just the right places. What the restore process does/doesn't, can/can't overwrite makes the difference between disaster recovery and, well, disaster.

 

By my count, that's seven questions, two of which are rhetorical, leaving five begging for answers.

 

Help is greatly appreciated.

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